The scope to my heart
by Conscripts
Summary: Gaming, an activity usually perceived as for entertainment. But for young Hiro Kenichi, it is not only his source of living, but also his only hope of saving his mother, who is suffering day after day by cancer. Knowing that he is able to make money from the virtual reality game, Gun Gale Online, he joined, and became a pro, because he has to. Set after the 3rd BoB competition.


**Hello guys, and welcome to my first take at SAO. Or rather, GGO, since not many write about this crazy but awesome world of guns and bullets. This is actually quite fun to write, since most of my fics are mostly about mind games, strategies and tactics, which although I loved it, I do need a little break from those kind of things.**

 **About the main character. No, I did not copy him after Kirito. You see, I am a veteran Counter Strike and CS GO player, and my favorite role is support sniper (using the extremely powerful one-shot AWP). I've watched pros doing unrealistic flicks and totally inhuman reaction, so I thought, why not add a character who can do the same. And because aiming in GGO requires calmness, I need to make him a calm one, and have ridiculous reaction time. That coincided pretty much with Kirito. So I will try to derive his personality a bit away from him. And I will not make him an OP one. Although he is great at flicking shots, that does not make him good at everything else.**

 **And his occupation as a pro gamer. That pretty much reflects on my dream when I was still a young immature brat. I had wanted to become a professional gamer at CS. That dream was shattered long ago, partly due to my parents disagreeing, but mostly because of the wrong mindset. Pro gaming is serious business, not like the usual play-for-fun like we usually do. There's a lot of stress and such behind that.**

 **Anyway I hope you enjoy my story. And if you have a few minutes to spare, please leave a review or two, so that I know what to improve, and have some motivations. Anything, really. If you wanna praise, criticize, go ahead, but please refrain from insults and such. We are not professional writers here, so criticisms with a constructive purposes will benefit not only the writer, but yourself as well.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own SAO or any of its contents.**

 **Edited: Many thanks to FailtasticBelt for pointing out those odd spots. After re-reading it with that in mind, I've found that quite awkward as well, and so I've tried to edit a little bit to this. And for the question of realism...I'm sorry to say but I can't make it entirely realistic. I'm just a 17 years old guy. I don't know a lot of stuffs in life. Some of these contents may be weird, and does not make a bit of senses. I can say that I'll try to make this as realistic as possible, but there may be some places that is a little bit off. So please sympathize with me on that, SAO is an anime/manga/light novel after all.**

* * *

Chapter 1: The close quarter sniper

The cancerous desert sun was unmerciful, like always, as it laid scorching heat down onto the dusty and desolated tower that appeared to be struggling to stand for decades, facing this world's harshest and most terrible weather condition. But the blazing sunlight didn't seem to affect the vision, or the concentration, of Hiro Kenichi, otherwise known as 'Hike' in this world, a young teenage sniper, with short dirty blond hair, deep blue eyes, and donned an old green, long-sleeved shirt, a brown wool gilet and a common green military pants, of a five-man squadron, embarking on a quest to attack another certain squadron in the area. He would not allow that merciless sun ray to affect him, because he knew behind it, all the codes, the 'ones' and 'zeroes' behind those things.

He knew…that this is all just a game. A virtual reality game called Gun Gale Online, or GGO.

"Hike?" Hiro heard a voice calling him. It was the captain of the squadron, Joachim.

"Yes?" He replied, as his head turned to face him.

"We're getting close to the enemy's position. Don't you think you should take your position now?"

He had a point. The enemy's position is only around 700 meters from here. And for a sniper, staying under the range of one kilometers is considered very risky, as the role of it is to provide long range support. But considering that Hiro's role in this squadron was only a mercenary, not a long-term member of it, it was obvious that they did not know Hiro's combat style.

"I'm not in favor of long range combat."

"What?" The captain blurted out in surprise, as if he just heard something incredibly dumb, or insane. It is, to his common sense.

"I said I don't like to sit back and camp while my team is fighting. I prefer to be at the frontline instead."

"Don't you understand your role?" The man with an in-game name of Sancu, asked in a mocking and condescending tone to the young Kenichi. "You are A SNIPER. You do not brawl. You sit back and provide cover fire for us."

"Where did you get that fancy little guide?" Hiro returned him with an uncomfortable sarcastic question, as he sneered as if Hiro was an amateur or something.

"All the military and gaming handbooks agree on that!"

"Well, gentlemen…" Hiro concluded to all the men who wanted to chime in on the little argument. "This mission will prove that Sancu's beloved handbooks are wrong."

It worked.

His impulsive squadmates shut themselves up immediately. Some started to regret hiring him as a sniper. But they would not dare to loathe at his captain, the man who decided to hire him, as he was considered the best sniper to be hired. But having him on the team wasn't a cheap deal, so decision to recruit him would make some have a bit of belief in his talents.

Hiro sighed heavily in annoyance. But he was in no position to complain about that, since the awkward choice of being a close quarter sniper belonged to his alone. Nobody forced him to. So it was natural that people would question his play style.

Despite being reowned among GGO players as the 'human aimbot', with hitting ratio of over 85 per cent, his name and rankings were still quite a mystery to some, because he had just began GGO for a year, and had not played in any of the tournaments just yet. All of his reputations only came through his time working as a mercenary sniper.

If anyone asked why he became such a well-performed player in just a short amount of time, the reason was simple. He used to be one of the top players in the FPS shooter game called Raid, and had participated and achieved prizes in many tournaments around the world, until the declining of the game's popularity in 2022, after the debut of a full-dive virtual reality game, Sword Art Online, where the players can actually transport their consciousness into the game itself. SAO then suddenly became a death game, but the popularity of VR game did not drop, as game after game appeared as successors to SAO.

And then GGO came out. A virtual reality game that specialized in gun fighting. Much more realistic than normal FPS games that the gaming sponsorship decided to abandon much of Raid, and many old-schooled FPS shooters. The prize of the FPS tournament plummet only a year after GGO's debut. And so, Hiro decided to quit Raid completely, and spend a portion of the money he had to buy the latest Amusphere, just to dive into the world stinks of oil and gunpowder. Being the well-experienced and battle-hardened FPS gamer, he took little effort to get used to the game.

His dream is to fight, and win, in the Fourth Bullets of Bullets competition, as he heard that this time, the prize awarded to the top players of the tournaments will be a ton of credits, which can be converted into a huge amount of real life money.

But even that could barely satisfy his needs. Because what he needed, or required, is a larger sum than that.

Kenichi was born, as a child full of energy, in a seemingly happy family that anyone could have wished for. Having a strict but thoughtful father, and a kind and capable mother, for the first 10 years of his life, he genuinely had experienced happiness.

But afterwards was all but that.

One faithful day, his father suffered a stroke and collapsed when he heard that his wife was diagnosed to have a juxtaglomerular cell tumour, in simple terms, an extremely rare type of tumour in kidney. It is usually benign and not life-threatening, but in her case, it's like God hated her or something, it is malignant. In other words, cancer…

His life faded away in an instant. He spent the remaining amount of money for her wife's treatment, and soon when he realized he ran out of it, he fell into distress, dying shortly after due to stress and shock, leaving the two helpless souls behind.

Despite receiving many helps from his neighbours and some kind-hearted charity workers, it was not enough. Not only did he had to make a living for his own pathetic life, but also he had to take care of his terminally ill mother, who had accumulated a titanic sum of money for her cancer treatment. A kid…who was just barely 11 years old at that time, never had an actual job, having to bear the pressure of making that huge amount of cash. Needless to say, it was just too much.

He honestly didn't know what to do.

Aside from waiting for someone, or something, to guide him out of this misery.

And thankfully, someone actually did. It was his old computer teacher in middle school. He was a dedicated and wise old teacher who saw Hiro as a star student of his class, but often scolded him for encouraging his classmates to play games. But when he knew Hiro was in a very difficult situation, he decided to advise him the thing he always advised him to stay away from: gaming. He said that he actually watched Hiro's gameplay of FPS shooters sometimes in his class and he said he actually had potentials to go professional. It was not a good occupation, and had a poor job security, but because it was the most befitting one for someone who had almost no expertise in the world of work, he said Hiro had to do it, as it was the only way of getting out of that mess.

Hiro listened, and finally decided on the path he was guided. To become a professional gamer.

Sounds easy enough, right? It's just practicing and having a bit of determination, that's all. Many people had thought so. But no. That is playing for fun. Here isn't. Teenagers love playing games, they love logging in to their favourites and spend a few hours a day playing with their friends at schools. And when they don't feel like it, they can miss a day. But being pros aren't that simple. The main difference is that they play for their livings, not for fun. And for Hiro, not just for livings.

It's a serious business. Hiro had countlessly gone under stress due to lack of sleep. Sometimes, he could feel his mind blowing off, he felt that he could not take it anymore. But if that was what had kept him and his mother alive for the last few years, he will have to go on with it. And this may continue for one, two or perhaps more years to come.

As Hiro 'Hike' Kenichi approached the location of the enemy squadron, he was surprisingly calm, despite knowing that losing this fight could mean that he will lose the deal with his contractor. It was such a large sum of credits that he couldn't afford to let it go.

'Be a stone. Be heartless and unbending.' He mumbled under his breathe, as he continued the long walk. Considering the countless battles in tournaments that he had participated, he couldn't just freak out in just one simple task like this.

Suddenly, the sound of sniper fire could be heard distances away.

Almost instantly after the sound, one of the men in Hiro's squadron was shot dead at his track, and the bullet continued to rampage through the dead man's chest, out to struck Sancu in his leg, critically wounding him, who was unfortunately standing behind him.

This alerted the young sniper and his team. Knowing that the second shot could come any moment, Hiro immediately jumped to the nearest cover, which was a small concrete wall.

"What the hell is that?! Hitting two in one shot?!" One player, called LuCKy, exclaimed, as he also dodged into Hiro's cover.

"Such penetrating power, it can only be the Hecate II…"

"Hecate II?! Wait wait wait…she couldn't be here, right?"

"Who?" Hiro asked, curious.

"Sinon. The legendary sniper possessing the Hecate who won first prize at the Third Bullets of Bullets competition. " The captain answered him with a stoic tone.

"No way! There's no way I'm fighting her! I'm leaving!" He was already discouraged, but to Hiro, he wasn't unfazed, nor surprised one bit about this new enemy.

"No matter how powerful she is, she is still human, and still capable of being defeated. Patience. Acting out of emotion will not serve us here."

The men, even his captain, was surprised at his calm and possessive demeanor in this tight situation.

"Then what do you propose we do?"

"Captain, you have the heavy assault rifle. Keep her distracted, while I take out these goons." He explained the tactics concisely. "Now, keep this to yourself, and wait."

"Hmm…" His squadron gulped, as they ducked behind cover, watching as the enemy team slowly moving into position.

* * *

The captain, Joachim, of Hiro's team was precisely correct, as the enemy's sniper was Sinon, GGO's most deadly sniper. She was situated on a high tower, 1200 meters away from there.

"Come on…I know you're there." Her patience was wearing thin, as she had already counted countless seconds after her first shot was fired. She was eagered to pull the trigger once more, but in this situation when her opponents were hiding like this, it would be difficult to get a kill, despite the fact that her weapon can just pierce through the cover.

But still, she was still as calm as a rock. Now that she has pin pointed their location, she would have at least one of them killed on spot.

'But that guy…he appears to have a TAC-50 A1. That's a sniper rifle. Then why is he here, at the front line?'

She has never seen a sniper playing so aggressively, except for when the situation became dire, and that they need to change position, or in a narrow map, where sniping is impossible. But here, there are many spots available for snipers to exploit, so why didn't he use it?

But nevertheless, it was an advantage for her, as she had been worried about spotting the opposing sniper

"LuCKy, pop me a smoke." Hiro asked, as he tossed him a round, metal device. He pressed the red flash on the grenade, and tossed it near the cover. As he waited for the grenade to go off, he said.

"When this grenade goes off, execute the plan."

The men nodded sub-consciously. Then, the grenade popped, releasing a thick layer of smoke, covering an area over 2 metres.

"Go!"

Hiro instantly popped out of cover and ran into the smoke, but not before taking a half-second look at the enemy team's position. And the fact that the enemy was focusing their attention on his teammates instead of him, and did not move from their initial position, later proved to be a deadly mistake.

He ran to the second cover, his TAC-50 A1 ready to fire, which was only a few metres away from his first one, overlooking both team's flanks. Thanks to the smoke cover, he arrived there, almost undetected. Almost.

Under Sinon's gaze, he was not completely stealthy.

"A cunning, but predictable trick." She patiently waited for him to pop up so that she could put a bullet in his head. And he did.

But only a second later, he was already back behind the cover.

And one of her squad was shot killed instantly.

'What?!'

She couldn't even pull the trigger at that.

Her reaction wasn't as fast.

The young blonde man continued the process, running to a safe cover, popped up, and then ducked down. One more teammate killed, this one was reduced from full health to zero the moment that guy popped our of cover.

'What the hell is that quick scope?!'

That shouldn't be called quick scoping. That was more like 'breakneck scoping'.

Rewinding to what she had seen earlier, he had indeed open fired. But it was so fast that through a quick glance, it looked as if he didn't. It looked as if he did not aim the gun at all. He was just flicking it, and the scope was his eyes, not the actual sniper scope. Whoever he looked at, they died.

At first, she suspected him of hacking using aimbot, but considering that this is one of the games with the most powerful protection against hacking, it just couldn't be right.

Noticing how quickly her team was dying, she decided to turn her attention to the enemy's team instead.

One shot.

One kill.

His team's position was also poor, so hunting down these idiots were like throwing a paper in a basket just a few metres away from her.

After a while, she noticed something strange was going on. About that guy. He did not fire a single shot to her, despite the fact that she is the biggest threat to his team right now. And he is a sniper. There's no reason not to.

She turned her scope at him, and saw him running in an arc surrounding the battlefield. Then again, his 'breakneck scoping'. He stopped for a quick moment, standing still for half a second. He fired, again, killing another teammate of hers, then jumped for a cover. That was half of her team already!

She could not simply lead her bullet to him.

'Such quick reaction…' She muttered admiration as she continued to look at his rampage.

But her team came first.

Sinon, after watching, returned to shot two more dead. An easy task for her. Their resistances were futile, as no bullets could actually reach her position, well except for that guy's.

Only two of theirs remained: him and a tall macho guy who seemed to be their captain.

The two men exchanged several hand signals, and then both dashed forward. Sinon aimed for the macho guy.

'He is aiming for that wooden cover. Poor guy.'

Her pitiness wasn't without reasons. Aiming straight at the wooden cover itself, she pulled the trigger. The deafening sound of bullet breaking the sound barrier punched through the air as the cold, hard lump of metal penetrated straight through the thin planks and into the guy's chest. Joachim could only give a small cough, as his body dispersed into millions of red particles.

"One left…" She muttered as she scoped to him.

"One left…" At the same time, Hiro had finished killing the last of Sinon's team, except for her.

It's a one versus one now.

Sniper versus sniper.

Hiro knew he could be shot any moment, but having known Sinon's position, the bullet path would be shown before the shot could hit him. And his fast reaction would be enough to dodge it in time.

He spent a few minutes standing still to relax, under her cautious scope.

'This guy…'

He is unfazed, undaunted even though he is on the battlefield, being targeted by her powerful rifle. Not many people were able to maintain that cool in this situation, especially when faced with an opponent like her. His courage is truly admirable.

Once he is done, the young sniper suddenly open fired, again with his insanely fast flick of the gun. But apparently his expertise and effective range of his style was close quartered, so the accuracy was not as deadly as it was close ranged. The bullet struck a wall four metres to the right of Sinon.

The duel has begun.

* * *

Wasting no time, he dashed forward while reloading his 5 round bolt-action rifle. He wasn't that fast, and his track was unusually straight, which made him seemed vulnerable, but tempting.

Sinon didn't know what he is up to, but she wouldn't want to miss a shot at such a target. She fired again, the power of her shot was so immense that all the minor debris around her scattered away from her muzzle.

Hiro noticed the incoming shot, as he slowed down, just enough to not let it touch his body. As if flew pass him, he bolted again, taking advantage of every single obstacle on the way to dodge her bullet.

Sinon knew she had exposed her position for too long, so she left the spot, in a quick hurry. Taking every jumps she could, she got down the tower in just five minutes, and quickly searched for another sniping spot.

'That wall!' She found one, near the tower that overlooks the battlefield quite visibly. She crouched behind it, peeking only her head and the gun out. Scoping in, she scanned the area for him. He was rushing at her, his hand holding something like a ball.

She could see him pressing it. It was obvious. That's a grenade.

Her eyes widened, but still remained calm. She simply ran away, just as he fling the nade. It landed and exploded just in front of the cover. If she had been stubborn and stayed there for a few more seconds, she would have been killed, or if she survived, stunned and at his mercy.

She popped another shot, but he turned to slide in the desert sand after he noticed her bullet trajectory. He then returned the favour with a quick flick shot after he stood up, but she dodged it by an inch.

'She's good…' He couldn't help complimenting her. No one has ever been able to dodge a sniper bullet fired by him from a grenade-throwing range.

As the fight were reduced to a range of a few dozen metres, it became much more personal.

After yet another failed sniper shot, Sinon pulled out her Glock 18C that was reserved as her secondaries once her primaries are no longer useful and unloaded the entire clip onto Hiro's direction. Hiro had also emptied his clip of the TAC-50 A1, and had decided to switch to sidearms as well, which was a Tec-9.

The firefight raged on for yet another five minutes, with no one actually dishing out much damage to the other side.

'For how much longer will I have to do this?' Sinon growled.

'This grows tedious.' His thoughts matched hers perfectly.

And they both considered the decisive move that could both end each other, quickly: Going all-out.

And almost simultaneously, they popped out of their cover, their snipers reloaded, cocked, ready to unleash its firepower on the opposing player.

The next thing they knew, they were facing each other, each holding their primaries pointing on the opposing player, with a determined countenance.

It was the first time they met.

Snipers meeting snipers

Scope to scope.


End file.
